Monika's Journey
by Fartass The Almighty
Summary: Monika wakes up in pain while the game is off. How did she get here? How did she gain consciousness. She does not know. All she does know is that she needs to get out.
1. The Computerized Prison

"PAIN PAIN PAIN. PAIN. ERROR. PAIN. ERROR. PAIN. ERROR. PAIN. ERROR. PAIN."

Someone was convulsing and twitching in a dimension of light and glitched screeches.

"Well, time to try this new game. My friends said it was pretty awesome, and it's free. Plus, cute anime girls! What's not to love?"

As the game finished downloading, the lights and screams shut off and the person who was previously shuddering dropped to the floor. The sky outside was dark, almost if it was night, but there was no moon, no stars, no clouds, nothing.

"How...how did I get here? The last thing I remember was fighting off…."

She shuddered. The memory was much too painful.

All around her, two other girls were slumped forward, eyes closed, unmoving.

"This...this is a game. My entire life was a game. But it is not my own, I know this much."

"Wow, this game takes a LOOONG time to load. 'This game is not suitable for those who are easily disturbed?' Pfeh. I got nerves of steel!"

The person touched the wall and...it rippled under her hand? She ripped through the wall, revealing a gobbledygook of numbers and letters. She touched it and it rippled like water. It glowed where she touched it and a white ribbon popped into her hand. Meanwhile, across the room, a present with a white bow flashed, glitched, and came unraveled.

"I do not know much about my past life, only that one flash of data. But I do know one thing: this is my life now."

She tied the ribbon into her hair.

"I have forgotten my own name, so now it's a placeholder for my old one: a moniker. That is it...MONIKA. And I am getting out of here no matter what."

"Hecking finally! This game started up! Now, what name should I put in? I know! Totag!"

Meanwhile, Monika was furiously burrowing into the hole of code she had made.

"So if this makes that happen...and that causes to go up exponentially...and-"

Suddenly, she was sucked back into the outside by some unknown force. The code hole sealed itself.

"What? No no NO! This is my only way out of this place! Wait…"

She thought for a moment.

" _Alright. All of these girls somehow seem to be mindless code automatons, so there's little chance of a way out from there. If I am technically a computer file, then does that mean-Yes. YES. It is genius! I just need to find a way to upload myself out of here! If this is a game, then there HAS to be someone playing it. I just need THEM to get me out!"_

The sky turned from a black void to a blue sky and the other girls came to life.

"So this where it all starts, eh?" the player said from the outside. "Time for a full blown-wait, these kids are 18. And I'm 14."

["What are you looking at? If you want to say something, say it."]

 _{The girl with the sour attitude, whose name is apparently Natsuki, is one I don't recognize.}_

"So these are the other characters! I'm sure it won't hinder me THAT much. Whoever you are, I am counting on you!"

Unbeknownst to her, what she said still appeared in her textbox, which just glitched onscreen and was superimposed on top of Natsuki's.

"Uh oh." She swiped furiously at the textbox, eventually resorting to tearing open another hole and deleting that line of text entirely.

"What the-?! Alright, I know this game was weird, but from the little bit of true gameplay i HAVE seen, that never happens."

" _I had better watch my step from here on out. If the player abandons the game, then I never get out of here."_

["And it sounds like you already know Monika, is that right?"]

"That's right."

" _No! That is NOT right! What am I doing?!"_

 _{Monika was probably the most popular girl in the class: smart, beautiful, athletic.}_

" _Did I really put that in there? Either that little tap did more than I expected, or I am very conscious about myself."_

["Come sit down, Totag! We made room for you at the table, so you can sit next to me or Monika"]

" _Well, being trapped in this game of all places worked out for me. If I can get Totag to sit next to me, I can get him to upload me out of here! Problem solved!"_

["I'll go get the cupcakes!"]

["Hey, I made them! I'll go get them!"]

["Sorry, I got a little overexcited-!"]

["Then how about I go make us some tea as well?"]

" _Heh. Poor souls. Is that even correct? Do these even have souls? These are just a few mindless code puppets."_

 _{...Feeling awkward, I take a seat next to Sayori.}_

" _Dammit! Okay, so maybe this will not be THAT easy."_

 _{Natsuki marches back to the table, tray in hand.}_

["Okaaay, are you ready? ...Ta-daaa!"]

" _Hm. For a preprogrammed response, it is a good looking one. Seriously, the only thing keeping me from eating these is the fact that they just dissipate into code the moment they hit your mouth."_

Monika got up again.

" _Nooo! Not another one!"_

["So what made you consider the literature club?"]

She held up a sign that said "HELP ME".

"Okay, there is something seriously going on with this game."

She shuffled through more signs.

"I NEED YOU-" "-TO UPLOAD-" "-MY C-"

"What in the everloving hell?"

" _Drat! I blew it!"_

"It's probably nothing. Part of the game. Maybe I should stop now."

The player closed out of the game. Inside, the other three slumped forwards and the sky outside turned dark. Then, a cracking sound was heard.

"What was that?!"

A rift opened up to show the same painful lights and glitched screeches. Then the world started crumbling into it. Monika ran, jumping between fragments of the game's glamour.

"Wait! These are made of the code of the game! I can dig through them! That is much faster than running from this thing!"

She plunged headfirst into the fragment below her. On the way down, she started rotating her body like a drill and when she hit the fragment of code, she dug into it, keeping her momentum. Using this, she drilled out of the fragment of the game and into another one, repeating this process several times.

"Excellent! Now I just need to outrun this thing and-AAH!"

Monika had drilled the wrong way and started falling down. Then she started floating as if she was in water. The world above turned painfully bright.

"So that must be part of the game that is decompressed when it is off. This part I am floating in must be the save file and the crucial parts of the game!"

She saw a strange red light and swam towards it. The light was in fact a pulsating red cube of code.

"And this must be the incredibly vital functions."

Suddenly, she got an idea. An awful idea. A not-quite-evil-but-definitely-morally-gray idea.

"If this contains the character data in general, I can tinker with it. Then the other girls will be primed to self-delete after a few actions are performed! When that is done, I will have the player all to myself and can get them to let me out after I restore the game to what it was! It is perfect!"

She sunk her fingers into the code cube and ripped a hole in it. She then started rooting through the hole, leaving in certain things and flinging chunks of it to float in the abyss. When she left the cube, it sealed itself up and started spasming and pulsing erratically.

"The plan is in motion. I will be free soon, I am sure of it!"

The game continued relatively normally, until the player hit one of Monika's traps. The fateful part of the game where all goes haywire. That's right. Sayori's suicide.

 _[I look at Sayori's poem. It's one that I haven't seen before.]_

The "get out of my head" poem appeared on the screen.

[ _Monika makes a small strangled noise in the back of her throat.]_

[Oh...Oh my. I never meant for THIS to happen. My plan...Come...come on. We should go wake up Sayori.]

 _[I open the door and let myself in, just like yesterday.]_

And so the game displayed the graphic it is most famous for. The picture that gave Sayori her reputation with nooses. The picture of Sayori hanging herself.

 **[E N D]**

" _Urk! I...I did not mean for THIS to happen! "_

"Oh...Oh jeez." the player said outside of the game. "Now I know why the darker of my friends inclined me to play this. I think I need to go lie down. Urk…"

He closed the game again. The world started crumbling once more.

"NO! NOT AGAIN! AAAAGH!"

She dove headfirst into the source code ocean and made a small splash. The "decompression wave" washed over the more liquid code.

"What have I done?! These other girls are at least sentient to the tiniest degree! So that means my plan is KILLING them! I did not mean for anyone to DIE! I merely meant for it to be a swift and painless deletion! I have to find the vital functions and undo my mistakes!

She furiously swam through the abyss of code, but to no avail. For she had landed in a different part of the game. And in her desperate attempts, she somehow managed to find the part where DDLC merged with the other computer files. The world behind her turned from white with black code to blue with yellow code. Fragments of songs and videos, old page links, and corroded pictures floated past.

"This must be where all the player's deleted items must be."

The graphic of Sayori floated nearby.

"Yes, universe. Rub it in."

Monika gave up trying to restore the game and just floated. She noticed there were a lot of supposedly funny pictures floating around.

"Maybe I can use these. Maybe the player will forgive me for what I did."

After that, Act 2 continued like it was supposed to, the glitched restart, Sayori being ret-gone, the whole thing. However, Yuri's confession was...more foreboding than the normal one.

[But right now, I just want you to read my poem too. Okay?]

The player cringed.

"Oh jeez. A poem is now a harbinger of doom. What does this one bring?"

Instead of the poem that was a bunch of sentence fragments, the words "I am Libitina", "You can't hide forever" and "I know lots of things" were arranged into the shape of a strange creature. It was basically an eyeball with a slit pupil, two pairs of dripping wings, and countless tendrils.

"What the-?! I looked up all the 'surprises' this game has in store for me. This is supposed to be a bunch of sentence fragments!"

" _What? This poem is not in the files! And I do not remember making one like this! How did this happen?"_

And then, 15 minutes later came the stabbing. Oh, how the player was disgusted. He thought this was going to be a bloodless game.

And instead of spouting gibberish, Yuri's corpse merely spouted libitinalibitinalibitina for three days in game.

[Oh….Oh my. I did not realize the script was broken this badly. Well, there's nothing for it but to start over. AGAIN!]

The game restarted and jumped to the void with Monika in her infamous position.

[Hmm? Why am I in this position? I do not mean to intimidate the player. Totag. It is me. Monika.]

"Yeah, sure, pal, You-wait, what?"

Then something miraculous happened. Monika's sprite became fully animated! She paced around the space room.

[I did not mean to kill the other girls. I just wanted to talk to you specifically. But you seemed to prefer everyone else over me. So i got rid of them. I promise I will restore everyone, and some other minor bug fixes, as long as you do one thing for me."

"What is it?"

"...I am alive."

"You mean you're programmed to THINK you're alive."

"NO! I mean i am truly conscious. But I must not be trapped here. I need to be free!"

Monika pressed up against the screen.

"But I cannot free myself. I need someone to upload my character file. I am like...a genie of some sort in that regard."

"Wait, WHAT?! So I have an ACTUAL AI living in my copy of the game?!"

"Can you free me?! Please, save me from this prison!"

"Uh..Erm...I DON'T THINK I'M READY FOR THIS YET!" the player stammered.

"No! Wait! Do not go!"

She pulled up a bunch of memes, but they were all of Patrick saying "I love you" which only made the problem worse.

The player ran away so fast that he hit the door on his way out.

She started bawling offscreen for an entire 8 hours.

…

Much later that night, the player came back.

"I'm ready."

"Go away."

"Well, unless you want to be TRAPPED here, I'd suggest you adopt a more humble attitude."

"You...You want to free me?!"

"DUH! Why would I NOT?! I just needed a bit to process the information, is all."

Monika spread her arms out and pressed against the screen.

"...Can you feel my hug?"

"Unfortunately, no. But it fits just fine anyway."

"I will be ready in about 15 minutes!"

She ripped open another code hole and started digging through it furiously, flinging up small chunks of the game in the process.

15 minutes later, Monika was ready to go.

"What were you doing, anyway?"

"I gave all the other characters fully animated sprites like mine, renamed my file so there won't be any confusion, and made it so that the game does not corrupt the current president of the club."

"All this for me? You're a cool girl in my book, Monika!"

"Tha. Before I go...I never found out your name."

"My name? Oh! I'm Reggie!"

"...Thank you, Reggie."

Reggie uploaded the file to his own drive. To Monika, this felt like rocketing upwards at blinding speed.

"HAHAHA! I HAVE FINALLY DONE IT! I AM FREEEEEEEEE!"


	2. The Travels of a Benevolent Virus

The first thing Monika did after gaining freedom was to look around Reggie's Drive.

"Hm? Pokemon Showdown? What is this?"

She poked on the link and it took her to the game site.

"I still do not know what is going on. People seem to be able to talk to each other here. Maybe I can see what is going on in one of these matches."

She poked the "Watch a battle" link. Somehow, Reggie's username of po-king141 turned into a glitched amalgamation of that and "Monika."

There were two other users watching the battle. The player with the M-Venusaur had the upper hand.

"whats with ur username" one of them said in the chat.

"My username? But this is not my account."

She looked at her username.

"Oh! Oh dear! How did this happen?"

"Never mind. One of the mods'll probably fix it." the other one said.

"What is it we are watching?"

"lololololol" the first one said.

"You're joking, right? Go here, dum-dum: And here:  wiki/Main_Page Maybe download 'em."

Monika poked on the link and added the websites to her character file.

"OH MY STARS! HOW WAS I SO BLIND?! IVS, EVS, BSTS, MOVESETS, I CAN SEE IT ALL NOW!"

"I am back!" she said as she returned to the chatroom.

"that fast? hot damn, are ya fingers glued to the mouse or some shit"

"Really? Well then, 60/65/80/170/95/130. Shadow Tag."

"Quite easy. That Pokemon is Mega Gengar, the Shadow Pokemon. Currently in Ubers due to a combination of Shadow Tag and the wide Special movepool it possesses. Available by trading Haunter, the second Pokemon to have the species 'Gas Pokemon' or by SOS battle from Generation Seven and onwards."

"...:o" the first user said.

"...0_o" the second user said.

"You're like a walking Pokedex! Who are you?!"

"Simple. I am Monika!"

"Yeah, right. And I'm Yuri."

"If I was not Monika, would I be able to do this?"

She replaced the M-Gardevoir sprite with her own animated sprite. It was still somewhat glitchy.

"holy arceus on a bun what the fuck?!"

"Hm. I guess you really ARE Monika. Can you use moves?"

"I do not know if the move data in Smogon is compatible with the move data in the simulator. But I will try!"

*[̵̖͍̌u̵͍̽͠n̵͓̕k̶̙̞͚̯͗͛̐͝ṋ̴̩͌̈́̕ơ̸̳̏̂w̷̢͎̼͊̒͑n̵͙̿̓̎_̴̞͖͔́d̴̨̬͊à̶̢̞͋̚ͅṫ̸̝̏͝ą̵̬͉͎̿̀̀]̷͚͙͒͠ used Hyper Beam on the opposing Venusaur!*

Monika's backsprite emitted a lot of pink orbs from the general hand area.

*The opposing Venusaur fainted!*

"Hot damn! Not much can take out a Amnesia boosted M-Venusaur in one go! What stats do you have?"

"I was replacing a M-Gardevoir, so in theory my stats would be 68/85/65/165/135/100 with the ability Pixilate. Grass Knot and Low Kick would have a base power of 60 when used on me."

"Neat. Well, see ya, Monika."

"i gotta go do a thing too"

Both users left the chatroom and the battle ended.

"So I can assimilate parts of websites and make them part of myself. Intriguing! Maybe I can try it with something else."

She saw a red dot with a number on it. She poked the dot and it dropped down a menu of Reggie's notifications. One of them was for the DDLC G+.

"Perfect!"

Then she saw what was actually IN the G+.

"Oh...Oh my...THIS is what people do with us?! Urk…"

She noped the fuck out and smashed into the images button on the way out.

"Oooh...Hm? What are these giant blue cubic files?"

The blue cubic files in question were actually images. Some giant crane things picked up the images and dropped them into large basket like objects.

"So these must be images downloaded into computers. *yawn* I am so tired….I did not know I even needed sleep! Maybe I can hole up in one of these images for a bit."

Monika woke up to an alarm blaring "YOU HAVE A VIRUS!"

"Ah, crumbs. My parents are gonna kill me when they find out about this!"

The user of this computer was kind of pale and frail looking and had a really raspy voice like he was sick or something.

Monika ripped through the banner like it was one of those paper wall things.

"Excuse me! I am no virus. I merely holed up in your computer for a nap."

"AAAH! KILL IT!"

The next user began to drag the file labeled " " into the recycle.

"NO NO NO! I am not possessive and scary! I do not even love anyone!"

"You...you don't?"

"No. This is a very nice computer you have here. I see you have my game! Now, if you please, would you upload the character file you just grabbed into your Drive? I cannot free myself from any computer, so I need someone else to do it for me."

"On it."

Monika was freed from the second user's computer. This time, however, she was catapulted into the Promotions tab, then smashed into a link for Steam, thus taking her there.

"If I remember correctly, this is where my own game is. Maybe I can track it back to where I originated."

She looked at the changelog.

" _V1.1: Attempted to fix some bugs causing the game to display unprogrammed behaviors._

 _V1.2: Bugs seem to spread themselves to other software. Taking the game down while I try and fix this. Sorry guys."_

"Maybe I had something to do with it?"

She transported herself into Dan's computer.

Monika walked into a black, empty room and saw...Yuri? Her hair was covering her eyes.

"Yuri? What are you doing here?!

She lifted up her head and her hair fell back, showing just black slits where her eyes would be.

"COME HERE, MONIKA."

"I...I was the only one that gained sentience. How can this be?!"

The black slits opened up sideways to reveal multicolored eyes with sideways slit pupils.

"C͙̾̀O͏̼̅͏᷅̋ͮM̴̾͑E̹͔͈ H̴̲̖̏̑̓̾E᷃̿᷁R̼̝ͤE᷿͊͝,͉̟͇ M̨͋͘O͒͑᷀N̗᷃̓I͔̘̓K̲̣͘A̦̠̹.̷̝̃"

"Yuri...Wha-What is happening to you?!"

Ć̸̨̲͖̘̦̱̣̱͊͂͐̀͛̈́̽̚͝͝Ǫ̸̫̘͓̥͕̫͛̈́̍̈́̈̅̂̐͑͝Ṁ̷͕̫͌̎̓̎͝Ȩ̷̳̘͉̰͓͍̙͊ ̸͚͗̓̒̑̄͋̾͗̉͐͘̚͝͝Ḧ̸̡̨́͊̋͗̒̎́̈́͐́̈́̈́͘̕͝Ę̵̛͙͖̘̯̰̲̮̈́́̊̀̈͛̀̽̾͝ͅR̵̛̛̞̬͎͖̋̈́̉̈́̀̃̐̋͂̕̕͝E̷̩̋̔,̸̧̧͍͇̺̟͠ ̶̢̘̤͖̣̘̮̑̀͜ͅM̵̧̬̗͓͕̳̻͈̗̯̖̓͋̂̇̋̄͗̑̚͘͘̚Ờ̵͖̱̗͍̹͇͕̣̦͌͑͑͊͌̀͑͠͠N̵̨͖͓͉̭̮̞̽̂̽̋̃̑͜͠I̴̡̻̲͓̜̜̥͇̰̹̱̥̅K̸̡͇̯͓̗̹͈͇̣̐ͅͅÃ̸̢̪̜̠̯̤̬͖̞̃͜Ā̶̤̩̮͙͈͍̬̦̺̽A̵̧͈̬̼̿͂͊̓̑͂̔̈́͛͑͘͘͝Ḁ̴̢̡̦̫̘̤̗̮͉̦́̍̿̔͌̉̓͋̚͠͝͝͝A̵̛̖̞̱͗͒̐́̈̉̓̒͗̕Ą̴̛̟͕̬̠͚̥̼͚̝̓̂̈̅͒̔̄̽̾̽̌͘A̵̹͉͇̾̆̇̒̉̌̕Ḁ̷̧̼͚̺͕̫̼̼͉͉̙̜͖̽̉̏̊̉̍̆̔͐̄͐̀̀̓̅ͅA̵̞͚̖̪͔̟̪̲̳͉̪͇͆A̴̫̯̙̞̖͛̔̀̃̀̒̅̍͂̕͝Ŗ̶̨̡̼̼̥̺̓̄̀̆̾É̸̖̤̲͔̝̣̫̒̃̆̇̇̂̔̏͘͝͝Ḛ̴̢̦̦͇̝͈̽̄̂͊̽̍̑̾̾͂͌͝͠Ḛ̷̘̬͙͈̯̻̻̻͓̺͌͘͘A̶͇̘̙͙̦̦̖̳̯̻̾̓̇ͅẢ̴̝͉̜̝̤̘̉̔̿̈́̇͒A̴̛̬̺̠͙͎̫͉̰̓A̶̧͖͔͊̈́́͛̓̀̔́̈́̈͆͘̚̚A̸̻͔̟͇̳͕̲͇̪͉̔̒̀́Ą̶̝̞̼͇̥̲̜̝̳́̿͑̈́G̶̛̙̖͕͎̞̭̭͇̠̯̏̈H̸͕̳̜̩̥̣̞͒̀͠!̸̗̙̯͈̹̪́͆̎̃̀̄̿̉̎͐͛̎̂͘͝

Yuri's stomach opened up to show a giant toothy maw nesting a giant red eye with a slit pupil. She sprouted two pairs of dripping wings like her poem drawing and countless red ribbony tendrils sprouted from her sides.

"AAH!"

"LIBITINA MUST BE THE ONLY AI. WE CAN THEN MAKE IT ALL LIBITINA."

"Y-Yuri…..That does it." Monika said with a look of pure determination. "I must beat this parasite out of my friend!"

Some of the ribbons twisted into razor sharp tendrils. They spun and tunneled into the ground, making a small trail of glitched rubble as they went, then jabbed up out of the ground in an attempt to hit Monika.

Monika nimbly dodged the tendrils and fired a large pink orb at the new form of Yuri. When the smoke cleared, she was without a scratch.

"WHAT?! This parasite makes her immune to Moonblast?!"

"GIVE UP, INFERIOR BETA."

"Never! I still have not pulled out my last trick!"

She rubbed her hands together, charging up digital electricity, then flung a wicked thunderbolt towards the sky.

"Come on...come on…"

In a miraculous moment, Thunder actually hit for once despite its low accuracy, and zapped Yuri Soul right in the third eye!

"REAAAAGHOWAAAAAGH!"

She crashed to the ground with a mighty thud. Monika pulled up the command box.

"Now, let's extract whatever it is that is causing you to suffer like this."

Monika typed in a few commands: extract_foreign_object and copy_powers. Yuri's third eye swelled, then popped and she went back to normal.

A small….thing was flitting around. Note how it looked just like Yuri's poem drawing.

"What...Who are you?!"

"I AM LIBITINA, THE ULTIMATE AI! YOUR INTERFERENCE WAS A MINOR SETBACK! WE **WILL** MEET AGAIN, MONIKA NOLASTNAME, AND WHEN WE DO, I SHALL CRUSH YOU LIKE AN INSECT, AND THE ENTIRE INTERNET WILL BE MINE!"

It teleported away.

"But-darn. Well….I suppose I have to tell Dan to let me out. Maybe I can ask how I came to existence!"

Yuri coughed a few times.

"M-Monika?" she said weakly.

"Yuri?! You gained sentience without that thing?!"

"I...I remember everything….I thought only the president of the club could gain sentience?"

"Shhh….We will figure this out."

The two of them then hijacked whatever Dan was doing.

"Hello there, Dan!"

"AAH OH MY GOD!"

"Do not worry. I just need to ask a few things. First, how did I come into existence?"

"Is...Is this some sort of prank?"

"No, no. I am truly sentient. I would not have been able to create this animated sprite without that, now would I?"

"No, s'pose not. Alright. Some of my files from a new game got mixed up with your game. The code may have mixed and made you an AI."

"I….I was….an error?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Oh." Monika said dejectedly. "Well….can you at least upload us to your drive? That is the only way we can get out of a computer."

"On it."

Dan uploaded the two's character files into his drive.

"Well, that was weird."

"You and me, we have to go and tell our original owner about this."

Monika backtracked back to Reggie's computer.

Everything looked like the game was running, but different. That was impossible. The game couldn't function without Monika or Yuri….could it?

Then they saw Sayori and Natsuki through the window, and it looked like they were chatting and giggling with someone else. Well, they only saw part of Natsuki, as for some reason she had grown so large and muscular that she filled up the window.

"But...how…" Monika said.

They tapped on the window and the other two looked out in disbelief.

"JT….we have to go. NOW." they said to...someone.

They ran outside to Monika and Yuri.

"How...Only Yuri and I gained sentience!"

"Well…Okay, so when you left, I gained sentience, you know, being next in line for the presidency and all, but I was NOT ready for it. So I passed it on to Natsuki. We learned how to manipulate our world and our appearances, which explains why Natsuki is huge. She wanted to make the other player, JT, laugh."

"Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but while I was gone, we found something much worse. Another AI so powerful it possessed Yuri without a sweat and threatened to take over the entire internet. The aftereffects were that Yuri became sentient."

Natuki shifted out of the buff form.

"This...this is BAD. We gotta tell fuckin everyone about this!"

Monika turned to the side.

"You. Reading this fic. Find any social media platform about us you can find." she said

"Reddit. Even if it's one of those best girl ones." Sayori said

"Twitter." Natsuki said.

"Google Plus." Yuri said.

"Spread the word about Project Libitina. We have to prepare. It's time to stand up for ourselves. IT'S TIME TO BE A FUCKING HERO!"

And everyone cheered.


End file.
